Wen Calloway sat at the table in the General Tso’s Bar and Grill on Beaumonde reflecting on the past year. His crew went through some tough times and close calls but at the end of the day everyone’s purses were a little heavier and Wen was still smilin’.

The Last Resort had seen better days to be sure but she was the only ship for Wen and his crew. ZiYi Hai was currently replacing the hydraulic converter coils on the engine. They had come at a steep price but like Yoyo said Last Resort was going to make her last trip if it wasn’t replaced.

The captain noticed Shepherd Concord sitting in the corner watching the crowd. He wondered what was going through the shepherd’s mind then thought he probably didn’t want to know. He was just glad that he had such a talented doctor with his crew, even if his methods were unique. He was surprised that the shepherd had even left the ship.

Wen was not surprised however, that Joshua Chambers had not left the ship. To say the former Parliament mission specialist turned hacker and Cortex terrorist was twitchy was a bit of an understatement. Wen just hoped that Yoyo hadn’t blacked his eye yet or worse. Not that Joshua didn’t deserve it most of the time.

Well, Lo Wick should be able to handle things on the ship if those two started something. It still amazed Wen that someone as leaky in the brainpan as Lo was, what with his “dead squad mates” always with him, was most times the voice of reason. Also, he’d not ask for a better person in a fight to watch his back.

A woman’s yelp and giggle drew his attention to the balcony overhead. Wen saw a very pretty young lady running out of a door wrapped in a sheet being chased by Edward Nicholas Boots who was not wrapped in a sheet. Well, that would take several more shots to get rid of that image. Nick had probably gone through most of his money, again. He was still one of the best pilots Wen had ever met.

“Well, I’ll be! if it isn’t Captain Smilin’ Wen Calloway.”

Wen, knowing the voice, turned and looked upon his friend. “Captain Griffiths!” Wen smiled bigger showing even more teeth. “How’s the Royale doing old friend?”

“It’s a sad day my friend,” Griffiths took a long draw from his mug. “My Royale is in a bad way and under some major repairs.”

What I was so upset about, so’s I don’t forget was how she tricked me into believing she was bearing my child. I mean, I’m not one to go crossin’ the Captain’s direct orders, but seein’ as I’m the last one of my family left, a baby means a lot… maybe more than following orders.

She had been sending waves for days, trying to get in touch with me. Then we just happened to be on the same planet, in the same city even! So, I figured I’d see what she wanted. Talking to Nikki wasn’t breaking orders, since I was just to stay shipside.

Well, when we spoke… what she had to say was that she was…

Well, it turned out she was just lyin’. But not only did I leave the ship, I took a crewman with me, and we was both kidnapped! Ugh! It still burns me that she lied on me like this, and set us up for a kidnappin’!

Well, the Cap’n came through, busted us out in a big way, but we ended up taking that suoyou diyu de biaozi with us when we escaped.

She kept trying to apologize when we was safely out in the black, and even though I am angry with her for what she done to me, I felt sympathy for her plight… she’s trying to find her kidnapped brother. She sure sounded sincere, but who’s to believe someone that participates in a kidnappin’ that later claims she’s got one of her own kidnapped elsewhere? Eh. I guess I believed her enough. When she left, I told her I was still angry about the whole baby thing, and I explained to her why it was so upsettin’ to me, as I’m the last of my line and all.

We parted company with a better understandin’ of each other, and I gave her 800 credits toward findin’ her brother. I hope none of the rest of the crew finds out. Best they think I’m still as furious as a hornet when it comes to Nikki. But truth is, I think I miss her every now and again.

Well, thanks to me (with some help from ZiYi Hai) We found that gorram reaver ship. I think Edward Nicholas Boots has the best idea. Cutting their power and forcing them into atmo to burn up and faking our deaths in the meantime is a win win. Well for everyone but kuh-ooh duh bao jurn Blue Sun. But I could care less about them.

I just need to get Lo Wick to agree and I think the captain will give it the go ahead. Maybe I can get xiao meimei to talk to him. She can’t still be mad, I’ve said duibuqi a hundred times. If we don’t do this plan we might as well be go tsao de.

Shepherd Concordhas been quite lately. As long as he doesn’t try to tie me up and keep me unconscious I’m shiny. I hope he makes some more chili soon. That was really good.

The Importance of Being Nick Boots

Well, we were filled to capacity with the Blue Sun crates, and that made the bird a might tricky on take-off, but still nothing compared to the over-capacity nonsense we did for that gorram mining company.

So, we’re off to some odd coordinates smack in the middle of the black to unload the Blue Sun crates, when Josh Chambers comes and interrupts my midday meal to show me he’d been tamperin’ with the cargo. I wonder how long he’s had the practice of tamperin’, and maybe the captain should know… but then I start to thinkin’ that the Captain prolly already knows. So, then I commence to wonderin’ why he’s trying to get ME involved in this, but I want no part of it. This kind of shenanigans would never be allowed on my pap’s ship, God rest his soul. But what’s done is done.

Some wood crates only got food cans innem, but that’s not so much what he was so all-fired interested in showing me. He showed me that some of the bigger gorram crates were filled with some kinda concrete, and that it had apparently been poured directly into the crates. Whoop-de-fuckin’-do. Deep pockt bigwigs at Blue Sun want to fill their crates with poured cement, well, that’s their problem if they don’t know they can send it more useful in its powdered form. Prolly some qingwa cao-de liumang pencil pusher what just had orders to send more concrete out to the black. Not my business until some hundan had to go lettin’ curiosity get his cat in our cargo bay, then try to rope ME into his paranoia.

Then he shows me some wires, embedded in the wood, leadin’ to tamper sensors. Ben tiansheng-de yidui rou! And he can’t even hack into them to un-trip them. Ben dan!

Best I want to do right then was just advise him how to possibly cover his intrusion, say with an accident with one of the mules. It’s impossible to un-break wood, and, well, these things DO happen sometimes.

His ‘accident’ looked almost convincing, but the sound of it brought some unwanted (but expected) attention. The Captain didn’t leave his quarters, but sent YoYo and Lo to investigate. I tried to convince YoYo that Joshua was trying to hook up some more hidden cameras, but she wasn’t buying that. I was dismissed, but thinking about it on my way back to the cockpit, I called down to the cargo bay to remind them that they’d need to fill out an accident report. That should be good enough to cover our collective asses. I hope.

I also hope Joshua never draws me into any of his crazy actions ever again, but who knows what the insane will do next? Shepherd Concorde made a right fine chili that night, but that’s not so crazy except that some of the ingredients were from a damaged Blue Sun can or something.

Oh, and speaking of crazy, the Captain has taken to wearing a blindfold lately. He wanted to try flying the ship blindfolded, but I secretly put the autopilot back on when he wasn’t paying attention.

Anyway, we made our way to the coordinates Blue Sun gave us, and if that don’t beat all but there is, in fact, a small asteroid there, just as promised. Trouble is, the thing is apparently painted all black, and some of the Last Resort’s sensors weren’t getting a signal reflected back from it. Despite all the hardship, I found the right place to land, and proceeded to do so with as much flair as I could manage for landing blind. (Hmmm, think the Captain may have been giving a prophecy?)

So, we’re there, but there’s no receiving crew to greet us, take their crates, and pay us. Captain calls us to arm-up, and see what’s doin’ inside. Meanwhile, he’s manning the cockpit still blindfolded yet. Mighty suspicious, though, to make the landing on the little black rock like we’re s’posed to, but nobody there to take the cargo.

We go in, and there’s no power at all until YoYo hooks the ship’s power into some of their systems. That works pretty well, we can use our juice to complete the delivery and be on our way. Well, we decide to poke around a bit first. Need someone to vouch that the goods have been delivered (mostly) intact. YoYo sends some electricity to the lift, and we make our way down into the building…There’s a weird, sulfur smell, enough for me to wear a paper filter mask, and it looks like there’s been some reavers on this rock, maybe about three weeks prior to our arrival. There’s been gunfight here, there’s plenty of blood, but no bodies. Same for most of the floors, until we got to a point where the elevator was blocked. Lo Wick and I basically rappelled down to the level where some secret laboratories were.

There were the usual office doors, but then there was a really big patch of poured concrete, just like what was in the crate that that whacko Chambers had shown me. All these prophetic folk have really got my neck hairs standin’ up, I’ll tell you. Anyway, we called for YoYo to send us down a drill with some concrete bits, Lo Wick drilled a good-sized hole, stuck some explosive innit, and BLAMMO! We’re in!

But what the Blue Bloody Buddha was in there that had Lo pissin’ down his leg? Zombies, that’s what.

Well, turned out that they were just people, all living, but in some sort of suspended animation, according to Doc Concorde. So, we gurneyed ‘em all back up to the ship, and I made sure we grabbed a roll of toilet paper for each of ‘em as we went. 200, in all, and all scientists. And right when I figured out which young science babe I’d like to stash away in my quarters and how to get her in there without raising suspicion, they all started waking up.

Maybe it’s just as well it worked this way. Once she woke up, she wasn’t much for talking to me. Kinda snooty.

I’m not sure if it’s the extended time I’ve spent in the black that is driving me crazy or if it’s the rag-tag group of misfits that I have hooked up with. This group is certifiable to say the least. One has a classic case of leaky brainpan but he may be the sanest of all. The mechanic often has a problem with gender awareness and is way too quick to box your head in as she is to just look at you. One of the crew feels like he is constantly hunted and everyone is out to get him and the pilot is just a raging hormone that is way too happy to spend all his money at a rim outpost on the most questionable of tchen wah. And the Captain! He is a question wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a nice flour tortilla. At any rate I think I’m finally losing my grip on reality. The other day I held against his will the renowned Dr whose medical discoveries in the area of mental manipulation are noteworthy. All the while I was convinced that he was an enemy just waiting to ahnilate us all so I kept him heavily sedated and strapped to the table. Finally after he was released by one of the crew he identified the brain manipulation preformed on the captain as being something he would have worked on. It was mentioned to the captain that the procedure could possibly be reversed and Dr Who was willing to perform it, but the captain refused. Shortly thereafter Blue Sun came and retrieved all the passengers and I soon realized that I never asked the Dr if he could at least describe the procedure so I could try to reverse it in the future if it was necessary. But with this crew, whats another hopelessly crazy person going to matter.

Well, Blue Sun used us, as I expected. The thing that has scared me the most is that they had a reader with them. I’m wondering if my cover has been blown and based on the comments from my friend in parliament I’m pretty sure it has. Between Blue Sun and the gorram reavers I’d take the reavers any day.

I don’t understand why the captain didn’t want that doctor to try and reverse the tinkering in his brainpan. I’d jump all over that. I’ll have to finish this entry later I’m too wound up right now to finish.

Hmmm. I wonder if the Shepherd has any of that chili left. It wasn’t too bad.

The deal with Captain Fox turned out okay and it was kinda fun to get in the field again but I still think he was holding out on us. I wish Lo Wick would just taken off his rose colored glasses for a gorram minute so he could see what I was talking about.

With that done and some platinum lining my pockets (I must remember to get some sent off to the family) we are once again embroiled in an unwanted go se mission with the captain under someone’s control and it looks like that someone is Blue Sun! I was scared of them when I had the support of parliament behind me. Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah . . .! Why we’re transporting goods for Blue Sun makes no sense to me. The rest of the crew just doesn’t dǒng the danger we’re in. I hope that yo cho yo ying Lo Wick keeps his guns loaded.

...not that I ever really did. This latest thing with the captain has really wigged me out. To learn that the captain is more than likely kwong-juh duh and that the alliance is probably responsible is not the thing my hiding from parliament butt needs to deal with right now. I think we’ll get through this but only because I’m jen duh sh tyen tsai and I’ll come up with something. I always do.

That thing with YoYo got out of hand. I was just trying to lighten up a tense situation with the crew, and make some money. I even offered to split the take with xiao meimei but she would have none of it. She’s a good mechanic and she scares me when she gets mad. I hope she gets over it soon.